The use of UPS's having battery back-up systems to provide regulated, uninterrupted power for critical and/or sensitive loads, such as computer systems and other data processing systems is well known. In one application, one to several UPS's can be connected to a computer network so that the network can communicate with each UPS.
In some instances, it may be necessary to know if a certain event, such as a battery failure, has happened to a UPS. A prior method of detecting an event in a UPS included manually searching through trap logs to look for an indication that a certain event happened to a UPS. However, this method can be ineffective and time consuming if hundreds or thousands of UPS's are connected to a computer network.
One prior art software package, Powerchute Plus, manufactured by the American Power Conversion Corp. of W. Kingston, R.I., is installed on a single computer or server and monitors the UPS connected to that computer for certain types of data. However, when Powerchute Plus is installed on a computer, it only monitors the UPS that is connected to that computer. Thus, under normal operating conditions, a single copy of the Powerchute Plus software will not monitor a plurality of UPS's connected to a network.